A step in the right direction

Few people have the knack for pleasing critics all of the time, but David Simon appears to be one of them. The creator of The Wire, one of the previous decade's most critically-acclaimed programs, returned to HBO last month with his follow-up series, Treme 87. Set in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the ensemble drama is the 2009-10 season's best-reviewed new show.

Treme is not alone in receiving praise from television critics. Overall, the past television season appears to represent an improvement over the previous year in terms of show quality. The five broadcast networks combined to launch 34 major new shows in 2008-09, for an average Metascore of 51.7; during this past season, the same networks launched 38 new programs with an average score of 54.8. And the past year's highest-scoring broadcast show, Modern Family 86, was one of three new programs to surpass the Metascore of the prior season's top first-year program, the short-lived Life on Mars 74.

In a moment, we'll look at the best and worst new shows of the past season. First, we compare the overall performance across the five broadcast networks. While none of the networks consistently delivered, Fox and ABC were the best of the bunch.

Broadcast Network Quality Comparison (New Shows Only), 2009-10 Season

Network		New Shows	% Good	% Mixed	% Bad	Average Metascore	Score Change vs. 2008-09 Season	2008-09 Score Rank
1	Fox	6	33%	67%	0%	58.8	↑8.4	4th
2	ABC	13	38%	46%	8%	56.8	↑2.1	2nd
3	CBS	6	17%	83%	0%	55.5	↓3.0	1st
4	NBC	7 *	29%	71%	0%	52.3	↑6.0	5th
5	CW	6	17%	50%	33%	48.3	↓3.0	3rd

* An eighth new program, the game show Minute to Win It, is not included in our calculations, because a Metascore is not available (due to insufficient reviews).

The 2009-10 season's best and worst new shows

Best Reviews from Top TV Critics

Treme (HBO)		Modern Family (ABC)		Justified (FX)		Men of a Certain Age (TNT)		Archer (FX)
Critics:	87	Critics:	86	Critics:	81	Critics:	79	Critics:	78

Best Reviews from Metacritic.com Users

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (ABC)		Archer (FX)		Justified (FX)		Men of a Certain Age (TNT)		White Collar (USA)
Users:	9.5	Users:	9.2	Users:	9.2	Users:	8.9	Users:	8.9

Worst Reviews from Top TV Critics

The Jeff Dunham Show (Comedy Central)		High Society (CW)		Hank (ABC)		Fly Girls (CW)		The Deep End (ABC)
Critics:	20	Critics:	34	Critics:	37	Critics:	39	Critics:	40

Worst Reviews from Metacritic.com Users

High Society (CW)		The Jeff Dunham Show (Comedy Central)		The Cleveland Show (Fox)		The Marriage Ref (NBC)		The Jay Leno Show (NBC)
Users:	1.0	Users:	2.7	Users:	3.5	Users:	3.6	Users:	4.1

American television series with seven or more reviews and debuting between August 2009 and April 2010 were eligible for the above lists. Shows are scored and ranked based on reviews published at the time of the original first season debut; returning series are excluded from these lists. The Metascore is a weighted average of scores from top professional critics, on a scale from 0 (bad) to 100 (good). Although scores have been rounded to the nearest whole number, shows are ranked prior to rounding. User scores represent an average of scores assigned by Metacritic.com site visitors on a scale from 0 (bad) to 10 (good). All scores as of April 30, 2010.

The season's best new network and cable shows

The year's best-reviewed new comedy, on network or cable, was ABC's hit Modern Family 86. The best new network drama was CBS' The Good Wife 76, while the best drama overall was HBO's Treme 87.

Best Reviewed New Network Television Series, 2009-10 Season

	Show (Network)	Genre	Metascore	Users
1	Modern Family (ABC)	Comedy	86	8.6
2	Glee (Fox)	Comedy/Musical	77	7.9
3	The Good Wife (CBS)	Drama	76	8.1
4	FlashForward (ABC)	Sci-Fi	72	6.7
5	Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (ABC)	Reality (Non-Competitive)	71	9.5
6	The Middle (ABC)	Comedy	70	7.6
7	Human Target (Fox)	Action	70	8.2
8	Community (NBC)	Comedy	69	8.1
9	Life Unexpected (CW)	Drama	69	8.5
10	V (ABC)	Sci-Fi	67	6.4

Best Reviewed New Cable Television Series, 2009-10 Season

	Show (Network)	Genre	Metascore	Users
1	Treme (HBO)	Drama	87	8.6
2	Justified (FX)	Drama	81	9.2
3	Men of a Certain Age (TNT)	Comedy/Drama	79	8.9
4	Archer (FX)	Animation/Comedy	78	9.2
5	White Collar (USA)	Comedy/Drama	78	8.9
6	The Inbetweeners (BBC America)	Comedy	72	9.6
7	Caprica (Syfy)	Sci-Fi	72	6.7
8	Bored to Death (HBO)	Comedy	65	8.0
9	The Ricky Gervais Show (HBO)	Animation/Comedy	62	8.2
10	Sherri (Lifetime)	Comedy	62	7.0

Among other types of programs (anything that isn't a regular, ongoing series), the Oprah Winfrey-narrated nature documentary series Life 90 was tops among several titles earning universal acclaim from critics:

Best Reviewed Movies, Miniseries, or Specials, 2009-10 Season

	Title (Network)	Type	Netflix	Metascore	Users
1	Life (Discovery)	Miniseries		90	7.1
2	The Diary of Anne Frank (PBS)	Movie		87	9.0
3	The Pacific (HBO)	Miniseries		87	8.2
4	Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) (IFC)	Miniseries		84	9.4
5	Temple Grandin (HBO)	Movie		84	9.7
6	Occupation (BBC America)	Miniseries		80	9.0
7	You Don't Know Jack (HBO)	Movie		79	9.3
8	Endgame (PBS)	Movie		77	n/a
9	Emma (PBS)	Miniseries		77	8.6
10	Return to Cranford (PBS)	Movie		76	9.0

Network performance

On the next page, we examine the performance of each broadcast network in greater detail.